About eight years ago Tom Foremski (of the tech blog Silicon Valley Watcher) began writing about how every company is a media company. At the time, the idea was not broadly understood. With companies like Google, MOZ and Hubspot popularizing inbound marketing, as a practical form of lead generation, reputation management and marketing, there is now a lively movement surrounding a more inbound, media company-like approach.

It doesn’t matter if a company makes diapers or steel girders, it must also be a media company and know how to use all the media technologies at its disposal. — Tom Foremski, April 6, 2010, siliconvalleywatcher.com

Characteristics of media companies

Content.
Transform your brand and business into a content producing organization. Whether you appoint your marketing agency, a single team member or become a social business and generate content from the whole of your employee base, content should be highly considered as central to your marketing efforts.

Relevance to your prospects, audience and customers.
Design and create content for people not search robots. Create content that is useful, entertaining, engaging or interesting. Try measuring the value of your content by the feedback you receive, comments you earn and social interactions. Ensure that your content adds value to the experience of your prospects and customers.

Tell stories.
Think like a news company. Tell stories that captivate readers. Try to create content that goes beyond a soft sell of your brand, and actually wins the favor of readers. Bring onboard creative writers who can help to breathe life into your blog. Be empathetic to your readers.

Ironpaper is a results-driven digital marketing agency. Ironpaper integrates design, technology and marketing for the web to drive meaningful results for clients. We are based in New York City and Charlotte, NC.